Something Human: A Conversation with Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell

Sofia, given your passion for photography, writing, and other creative pursuits, how did you know filmmaking was the path you wanted to pursue?

Bohdanowicz: I got into filmmaking in a very nontraditional way. I loved going to the movies, especially the drive-in, but I wasn’t drawn to becoming a director because of one particular film or filmmaker. It was actually because I had a hard time with public speaking in high school. I would always bomb presentations, and it was so humiliating because I never felt seen or heard, and never felt that my voice was being interpreted in a way that I wanted it to be. So I started making films and fell in love with the process. I was running around my school with a camcorder, interviewing people and putting together scenes very spontaneously. But I also loved the technical process of hooking my father’s JVC camcorder to a VCR, getting dialogue from the left stereo channel, then plugging in my Discman and playing it on the right. I was obsessed with the process of editing, but I also loved being able to craft the exact message or vision that I was trying to deliver to people. It wasn’t until later that I realized filmmaking was something I could pursue as a career. I didn’t know it was a possibility.

Campbell: Sofia and I recently visited Harvard as guests in [filmmaker] Dominga Sotomayor’s class, and Sofia did this workshop with the students that she calls the “Sacred Object” workshop. She has the students pitch their films, and then they all talk about what they think could be objects of significance in these films. Sofia is conscious of using objects as an anchor or as the heart of a film, and this method is extremely useful to me as a performer, because it gives me a point of focus. It was beautiful to see that, through this exercise, the students became more invested in each other’s work. So much of Sofia’s practice involving the idea of the object is that it’s an invitation for something to belong to other people as much as it belongs to her.

There’s also a feeling of ephemerality to these sacred objects, like the recording in Veslemøy’s Song, which is fragile and can only ever be heard once. The search your characters are on is always met with the same passion and dedication, whether they’re trying to find something they can hold in their hands or trying to find something that can only be experienced.

Bohdanowicz: I appreciate that you see that so clearly. Part of the importance of the “sacred object” thing for me is that filmmaking is very chaotic. We live in a world that changes so rapidly, that is dangerous and intense and completely unpredictable. But if you have an item or goal that centers you as you move along your way, I believe that you can make better decisions. When I made Veslemøy’s Song—a film about searching for a recording whose history is physically disintegrating—and as I was processing the film, I accidentally loaded it incorrectly in the Lomo tank, which resulted in all these crazy lines going through Deragh’s beautiful face. I was really upset about it at first, but when I looked closer, I thought, oh, this is so interesting, because the lines looked like a violin bow or the lines in a score.

 

If you have a goal that centers you, then when accidents happen along the way you don’t have to see them as disasters. You can think: how can this leave more of a human imprint on my film? For me, a good film is something human, and I think there’s a certain element of forgiveness or curiosity that comes out in these flaws.

Can you talk about the character of Audrey Benac? How has she evolved since she was initially conceived in Never Eat Alone, as you’ve developed her together in subsequent projects?

Bohdanowicz: Audrey is a combination of Deragh’s thoughts and reactions to experiences I’ve drawn from my family history, as well as her own ideas informed by the books she reads and the films she watches to prepare for our projects. But the starting point of Audrey in Never Eat Alone was very intimate: she’d live in my cousin’s bachelor apartment with a little Murphy bed, and she’d wear clothing that belonged to my grandmother and grandfather, as well as some of our own wardrobe.

 

I was impressed by how Deragh dealt with that intimacy so delicately and openly. She embraced it and took the character in as a friend, as someone she loved and developed into a human being. Audrey has such a life and breath of her own that we are able to be playful with the character and create an outline for her in different scenarios. We’re able to improvise and play a lot with her personality and gestures, and I think throughout the films you see her become a stronger combination of considerations from both of our lives—not just my family history but Deragh’s own experiences as well.

 

Campbell: I’ve been thinking a lot about the separation between actors and the characters we play. The way a lot of people think about acting, or a lot of the language around acting, has to do with becoming a character. But for me, it’s a little bit more like an interaction that you have with a character, a dialogue that develops between you and this fictional person. It’s through this dialogue that the character is born. My grandmother recently said to me that film sets are so much about relationships and the time you spend with the people you’re making the film with. But it’s also about the time you spend with this character and the relationship you have with them. One of the things that moves me about Audrey is her determination, her single-mindedness about her pursuit, but something that we leave unanswered on purpose is why or what it is that compels her to keep on this track. Maybe it comes from a real sense of emptiness, that she needs a pursuit in order to not feel lost.

Deragh, when discussing Stromboli in the Top 10 list that you two wrote for us a few years back, you mentioned that your “favorite kind of interplay between documentary and fiction is when a fictional character witnesses a documentary event.” I thought that was so revealing about the work that the two of you do together.

Campbell: It’s so nice that you zeroed in on that quotation, because that’s what I feel about performance: it’s about having an experience as the character and having it documented and witnessed. What the character is doing has to be enthralling enough for you to embody that, or you have to put a lot of effort into being enthralled. It’s the idea that you want to be so taken over by the experience of what your character is doing that you’re no longer making decisions about how the character would respond, you’re just responding without control of exactly what you’re signaling with your face and body. Sofia is so good at finding spaces and activities and collaborators that allow me to be fully immersed in what I’m doing.

Has your process changed as you’ve grown individually as artists and now that you both are often in different cities or countries working on projects separately?

Campbell: I’m sorry that this is becoming very sentimental, but I do feel now that when Sofia and I are in the same city, we experience a feeling of home. When we part, our goodbyes have become so tearful and extreme. And now when we work on things in separate places, there is a feeling of being away. We had to write a lot of our next film separately, though we would consciously go and be in the same city and spend time together at significant points in the process. It will be quite beautiful to be together when we start making the film.

 

Bohdanowicz: My sense of home and identity has certainly shifted throughout the last few years. But it’s incredible that Deragh has experienced such an intense and accelerated journey through my family history that she’s become a part of it. I think when you create a new home, you really hold on to those things and those pieces that keep you grounded. It’s like when I was trying to find my footing at the cinematheque, and whenever I saw Deragh I found that balance again. When it comes to the way that we work, it’s never about how or when we’ll find the time. That is always an absolute necessity and something that’s important to happen for our work to manifest. It’s a way of life.

Top of page: photo by Dominga Sotomayor